The Internet has provided all kinds of possibilities to collect and share information. The earliest applications are static web sites for distributing information. Those web sites do not accept data from viewers and have very limited functions. Then, dynamic web sites were developed to distribute information that changes in real time. Dynamic web sites often use database applications to keep track of information. The users can add data to the web server for distribution to viewers.
Database Management System (“DBMS”) has been the most powerful tool for managing large amounts of information and become the key component for managing information. Its history can be traced back to mid-1960s. As a result of half a century development, database technologies have become the most powerful technologies for managing mass information. By using database technologies, all kinds of information management systems have been developed. Network applications have been developed to manage business activities such as bidding, negotiation, inventory control, and rebate processing. They are designed and developed specifically for intended purposes.
After more than half a century of development, database technologies have become so complex that it is beyond the reach of ordinary users. It is noted there was a need for automated configuration and management. The development of numerous database options has increased flexibility in database management. Despite the efforts by all experts from the whole world, database technology is still considered as an art for server computers and mainframe computers. They are only used for large enterprise business. Because of the conventional notion that database application is not for personal computing, few studies have been directed to building the bridge between powerful database applications and small web applications.
Web interfaces between a database application and web users are realized by static programming. By using such a method, a server program using a database application must be designed specifically for each of the unique applications. The deployment of database application for online uses is generally expensive and requires a long development cycle. No publication teaches how to extend a database application to the browser in a quick and easy way so that ordinary users can run and use the database from a client computer. Another problem is that those who are in the best position to manage projects do not have access to the server.
There is a need for a simple technology which allows the users to run and use database application from web pages on a client computer rather than from a sever terminal. For example, there are always situations where a large number of the people work on a project from client terminals at various locations and such projects have short life cycles. Each of the projects requires different data types, and amounts in a highly unpredictable manner. Therefore, it is neither possible to develop a static web interface for a database system, nor economically feasible due to the nature of one-time use and constant changes.
Assuming that the task is to investigate an organized crime by multiple agencies in several locations, the project might require dozens of investigators to interview thousands of witnesses at various cites and collect information from all kinds of sources. Frequently, a vast amount of collected information might be ultimately useless, and the success of the investigation may depend upon the ability of the agencies to identify and connect only a few pieces of critical information. Thus, a web-based system for collecting, storing and distributing a massive amount of information at the lowest costs would be the best tool for finding such connections.
Another example is management of information for discovery for a large suit. In the last several decades, document reviewers received a binder containing review instructions on the first day of review. With information expansion in the information age, binders have become larger and larger. The background information may have tens of pages, the list of key players might be hundreds of pages long, and there might be hundreds of pages of relevant transactions. For a global company, any topic might require hundreds of pages of outlines. The investigators might have to use two, five or more large binders for tracking case information. When the task is to answer specific questions based upon the results of investigation, the investigators have to search binders. This become a task that could incur prohibitory costs.
The paper binder method is no longer workable for many reasons. All binders will become obsolete in three days due to discovery of new information and the changes in response to case activities. All reviewers or investigators have to learn large numbers of critical facts, terms, or transactions, and they cannot share the work product of others. When the entire review team is changed, the knowledge and experience of the team will disappear, thus the lead investigator might know little about review history, relevant facts, key transactions, important events, and critical documents. They never have a second chance to get the first-hand information, nor do they have time to re-review mountains of documents or just those important documents. When a reviewer runs into an unfamiliar term, a technology, a transaction, an event, a product, or a person, the reviewer may try to scan through the volumes of binders, ask a colleague who may not know it either, and just make a guess. In this finding-needles-in-a-sea working setting, none of the methods is productive and workable. Unfamiliar substance is the biggest time-killer and the number one factor responsible for poor performance and disastrous outcome. Corporate documents contain difficult technologies, uncommon acronyms, foreign language terms, unfamiliar jargon, and implied assumptions all over the places, and it is beyond the point for any intelligent reviewer to make a reasonable call. Reviewers have to make the best guess all the times. A bad call missing the most favorable evidence or inadvertently failure to keep a privileged smoking-gun document may ruin the client case.
The demand for a cheep, fast, and flexible web based information system exists in every walk and life. The same problems exist if a task is to find a small number of pieces of information from a potentially large and poorly defined information sources. A web-based information system disclosed in the present invention will be useful in clinic trails, census data analysis, research and development, surveys, business operations, personal information management, corporate internal investigations, and governmental inquiries.
For the forgoing reasons, there is a need for a new technology to use existing information technologies so that the user can tailor their use without additional development cycle. Such a system can be customized as a static web page, static web site, dynamic web site, information collecting system, data entry system, investigative information sharing system, database management system, electronic binder, and electronic book; and there is a need for using a system approach to configuring applications within a life cycle and between project life cycles.